


Anchored

by louisandthealien



Category: One Direction
Genre: 3k of self-indulgent meta shit, Canon, M/M, rbb and sbb, the Larry Hug
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-08
Updated: 2016-03-08
Packaged: 2018-05-25 14:41:08
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,813
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6199015
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/louisandthealien/pseuds/louisandthealien
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Sorry, what?” Harry asks, eyes shooting up from his laptop screen, finger still midway through reblogging a Tumblr post that reads, “Reblog if you aren’t Louis Tomlinson!”</p><p>“We should put out a cell phone,” Louis repeats from the arm chair he’s slumped into. He takes another bite of the burger he’s eating and raises an eyebrow in comical defiance at what Harry’s sure is a look of complete bewilderment on his face. “With the bears,” he adds with his mouth full, as if it weren’t completely obvious what he was referring to.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Anchored

“Sorry, _what?”_ Harry asks, eyes shooting up from his laptop screen, finger still midway through reblogging a Tumblr post that reads, “Reblog if you aren’t Louis Tomlinson!” 

“We should put out a cell phone,” Louis repeats from the arm chair he’s slumped into. He takes another bite of the burger he’s eating and raises an eyebrow in comical defiance at what Harry’s sure is a look of complete bewilderment on his face. “With the bears,” he adds with his mouth full, as if it weren’t completely obvious what he was referring to. 

Harry makes a face and cast his eyes back down to the screen. “Like…what? Just…a phone…?” he asks. After a beat, he glances up again with a smirk. “Why?” 

_Why_.

Ah, _why, sweet, why._ The word of the moment, the question asked several hundreds of times a day by everyone ranging from Liam to their PAs to their hoards of befuddled, excited fans across the planet. _Why, why, why._

Except Harry doesn’t mean _that_ kind of why. _That_ why is fairly obvious at this point, he thinks smugly. Or, at least, it _should_ be _._

Everyone around them might still shake their head and groan _“Why?!”_ whenever Louis’ spotted ambling about with a new, tiny t-shirt or when they walk in on Harry carefully framing a picture of Princess Diana and Prince Charles, but they never bother to answer anymore.

And, well, when their fans scream out, _“WTF WHY????”_ in the midst of a hysterical string of tags and tweets, Harry and Louis just sit back and smirk.

Because _they know why._ Everyone knows why.

No, no…at this point that singular, judging, curious little _“why?”_ has taken on a whole new meaning for Louis and Harry. 

“Well,” Louis cocks his head to the side, eyes flitting up to the ceiling as he ponders. “It’s like a communication thing, right? You know how some of ‘em get,” he rolls his eyes. ‘Them’ being that weedy, whiny little group of fans that, well, prove that not _everyone_ knows. Harry tries not to think about them too much. “But, look, so we put out a fuckin’ workin’ iPhone, right?” Louis continues, starting to laugh now, that sly, burning little glimmer that Harry knows and loves starting to brew in his eyes. “We give the bear a fuckin’ phone, Haz,” he says, and now Harry’s starting to giggle too, already imagining the flood of posts that’ll swamp his Tumblr dash if they go through with this. 

“Okay, but what if…” Harry interrupts, nodding slowly, “what if we literally just put the number right on it? Like just give out the number?” 

Louis takes an especially enthusiastic bite of his burger and points his finger in agreement. “Absolutely,” he says, voice muffled. “So you got the literal communication,” he chews contemplatively for a second and then swallows, “and then the whole _symbolic_ side of it. Like we’re throwing them a communication line, or whatever…you know, provin’ those morons wrong that say that’s not what it’s about…” He smiles in satisfaction and then wiggles his eyebrows once. “People are gonna text in the weirdest shit,” he says loftily, setting the other half of the burger down on the end table beside him and brushing his hands off on his jeans. 

“More like we’ll get about five thousand messages with LARRY IS REAL written in all caps,” Harry laughs, patting the seat cushion beside him. Louis slinks over and all but folds himself into the bend of Harry’s arm, resting his chin on his shoulder as his eyes run over the Tumblr page still pulled up on the laptop. 

“Well it is, innit?” he says softly, reaching over absently to play with the the drawstring dangling at the waist of Harry’s sweatpants.

“Mmm,” Harry gives him a little shove, shimmying his shoulder so that Louis’ fringe falls haphazardly in his eyes. “Not sure. Jury’s still out on that one.”

——

_74-92-81-78-94._

Harry types the numbers carefully, double checking it against the contact listed as _Niall July 2015_ in his phone. He never deletes anyone’s old number anymore, more out of laziness than anything. Every time he gets a new message he just programs it as name+time period so he knows which is which. And his mess of an address book has proven useful for once seeing as Niall’d dug up his newest-old number and the phone that went with it, graciously offering it up to the rainbow-bondage-cause like the true Captain of the Ship that the fans had apparently dubbed him. ( _“Captain of the Ship, my ass,” he’d fondly grumbled when Louis’d mentioned it to him.)_

Harry glances up at the mirror when Lou gives his hair a particularly hard tug, her fingers catching on some curls she’s trying to set just right, but he looks back down at his phone just as quickly, double and triple checking that he’d switched on the anon feature for the ask he’s about to send. He’d just about die of embarrassment if he messed up and his mutuals found out he was sending shady, fake anons…He chuckles once and blinks rapidly, stunned by how stupid he sounds, even to himself. Especially since, well…they wouldn’t exactly be _fake_ , would they? He checks the number again. _74-92-81-78-94._ Another giggle slips out and he hurriedly hits the send button, resigned to the somewhat confusing fact that he’d somehow managed to not only _be_ Larry, but also _become_ a Larrie. 

——

“Eleven thousand…four hundred…and…eighty…messages,” Louis reads in a slow, disbelieving voice. He looks up at Harry, phone held limply in hand. “I’m not exactly sure why I’m surprised…yet…”

Harry grabs the phone from his hand and flops unceremoniously on the bed, switching it to airplane mode as more and more messages continue spilling in. “What?” he asks, grinning up impishly. “You’re shocked that the same people that figured out where the hell you were within a half hour…based only a single picture featuring _a single wall_ …have sent you a solid twelve thousand text messages?” Louis just shakes his head, starting to giggle in earnest now, and toes off his sneakers, settling down on the bed beside him.

“I dunno, love,” he says softly, nudging Harry softly to scoot over so that he can stretch out properly. “I don’t think I’ll ever stop being surprised…”

“Come here then,” Harry mumbles, reaching out and pulling Louis close into his side, wrapping his arm around his shoulders so that they can both see the screen properly. “Let’s see…” he scrolls for a second before stopping and selecting a random message.

_“Hi guys!”_ Harry reads softly, smiling, “ _I just wanted to say thank you for everything. We love you and support you! Have a wonderful second to last / last show!!! xxxx.”_ Just below it, a second message from the same sender, probably an American judging by the double zero area code, reads, _“Also, tell us what your fucking thigh tattoo is Harry.”_

Louis roars with laughter, ducking his face into Harry’s collar bone. “Yeah, Harry!” he teases, “tell ‘em about your little drunk-ass tiger tattoo!” 

Harry clicks on the keyboard, ready to type out some witty response, but pauses. “Should we…should we like…respond, then?” he asks uncertainly. 

Louis sighs. He’s still tucked in tight and his hot breath tickles Harry’s skin. “Probably not.”

And Harry knows what Louis’ thinking. They’re treading a tight line as it is with all these shenanigans. It’s like Irving’d said weeks ago during a very strange, but very enlightening lunch meeting: _“There’s no clause for anonymous Twitter accounts and cryptic stuffed animals in your contracts…but the second you’re definitively shown as behind it all is the second you better get your lawyers on the phone, boys. ‘Cause they’ll come for you, all right. And they’ll come from you_ hard.” They being the devil incarnate, Modest!, of course. 

So Harry just sighs wistfully and hits the back button, scrolling again as they take turns reading out dozens and dozens of texts, some happy, some nonsensical, some demanding, some plane weird.

_“Harry and Louis mean so much to me. I just need you to let them know that if you can, RBB. Please.”_

_“SKDJFHSKDJFHKJSDFH ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING WHYAREYOULIKETHISSSSS”_

_“ANSWER ME!!!!!!!! ANSWER ME OR ILL FUCKIN DIE JUST ANSWER!!!!”_

_“YOU GUYS ARE THE BEST!! IM SOBBING. THIS IS INSANE AND I LOVE YOU AND THANK YOU SO MUCH!”_

Liam had said something about leaving for the bars around 1 AM and at the time they’d been more than down for another night of making it look like they weren’t in the same place, but as they read more and more messages, Harry feels his heart get lighter and lighter and the way Louis keeps cuddling in closer every few seconds, his smile burning through Harry’s shirt, seems to indicate a change of plans.

“Wanna just stay in and watch _Friends_ or something?” Harry finally whispers after a long silence, fingers tracing circle after circle against the soft skin where Louis’ thumb meets his index finger. Louis just knocks his knees against Harry’s and nods contentedly in response. 

——

“So are we gonna do it? Or…?” 

Louis glances up from his phone at Harry’s words, ignoring the steady stream of nonsensical, screaming messages spilling down the feed of the Twitter app belonging to a pair very gay, very silly stuffed bears.

He keeps his face totally passive for a moment, just to tease him a bit, before dropping his phone decidedly on the couch and springing up, crossing over to sit on the arm of the chair Harry’s folded into, his knees pulled in tight to his chest.

Louis considers him for just a moment before responding, a tentative, goofy smile tugging at his lips. He shrugs, grabbing Harry’s hand and curling both of his around it. “Fuck it, right?” he finally chuckles, giving the ring on Harry’s middle finger a twist. “It’d be weird if we didn’t, don’t ya think? What with everyone else doing it, I’m sure.”

It’s just that, well, tonight’s their last tour show for well… _for now_ , Louis reminds himself staunchly, refusing to give into that nagging, cloudy fear that maybe this might really and truly be it. That something, _anything_ might happen between now and that distant, murky date that’s represented by the refrain _we’ll be back!_

And since it’s their last tour show for a while, it’d be downright weird for him and Harry not to hug, right? Especially not if every other damn combination between the four of them has their own sappy, ready-to-gif moment? 

So Louis gives Harry a confident smile that they both know is more bravado than anything, but has it’s roots in something real, something tangible. 

The Tuesday show hadn’t been cancelled for nothing after all, he reflects wryly. 

——

_“No,” Harry had said loudly. He wasn’t yelling. Harry rarely yelled. But the effect was just as piercing because the look on his face was dark and hard and utterly_ furious. 

_He’d gotten the phone call just as they were arriving to the arena and settling in for wardrobe prep and Harry, king of privacy and settling disputes behind closed doors and never wanting to the crew to know_ too, too _much anymore,_ _had just about lost it right there in the middle of hallway, frozen to the spot as a suit on the phone told him the plan. Correction, he_ had _lost it, in his own Harry way._

_“If you_ fucking _think I’m gonna do this, you’ve got another thing coming, I can promise you,” he’d hissed, clutching the phone as if it were simultaneously burning him and keeping him alive. Louis’d tried to tug him away, keenly aware that they were attracting stares from people with whispering, loose mouthes._

_There was more refusals and empty threats and then Harry had gone white and paused for a moment before hanging up abruptly._

_His eyes shut tight, the column of his throat rising and falling as he swallowed hard. Louis grabbed him by the hand and tugged him along quickly, not bothering to ask what had happened until they reached the safety of their dressing room._

_Apparently they—they being Modest! as usual— wanted Harry to be seen with Taylor Swift again. Stage a fight or something like that. Something that involved them running into each other in a public space and ended in Taylor walking away looking distraught, something that would produce headlines insinuating she’d tried to make peace after hearing “Perfect” but that Harry had brushed her off, hard and cold._

_“If I don’t do it, they’ll tweet something instead. Favorite a nasty tweet or something. Whatever it takes it get the point across.”_

_Why their management company was hellbent on dragging Harry’s reputation through the mud, no one could ever understand. Well, they could logistically, yes, seeing as whatever got the most press was what won out and Harry’s name had been attached to lady problems for so long it had become a sure home-run in PR terms. Morally, however…_

_Louis’ vision turned red. “Nope,” he’d said immediately. “Nope. No fuckin’ way. I’m—“ He choked down the urge to punch something, turning away and covering his eyes with a shaking, furious hand._

_Every time they took a step forward, a step away from the stunts and the lies and the tabloid feeding trash that had come to consume their lives, they were sent tumbling right back into it._

_Taylor. Zayn. The fucking fake baby currently doing it’s best to destroy his own life._

_And in that moment, Louis just…he fucking just had enough._

_So he whipped out his own phone and shot off a quick, vague text to Liam and Niall. “Harry’s dressing room. Now. Emergency.”_

_No more threats. No more threats and no more stunts and no more playing along like a puppet in his own goddamn life._

_They wanted a PR stunt? Louis was gonna give ‘em a PR stunt._

——

So, yeah, they decide _fuck it_. They’d made a promise to themselves Tuesday night. No more bullshit. No more acting like they didn’t exist to the other. A hug’s a hug, they decide. For certain fans, it’ll mean nothing. For some, it’ll mean everything. For Louis and Harry, it’ll mean the first time they’ve even so much as touched on stage in about two years, but hey— who’s counting right?

But later that night, the moment Harry turns to look at him on stage, right as he pulls himself away from Niall, it’s as if water is flooding his lungs and he can barely even hear the crowd because suddenly there’s a strange rushing sound in his ears and five years of meetings and warnings and forcing himself to turn away are setting off screaming, blaring reflexive sirens in his head. Standing up to Modest! and giving them a great big _fuck you!_ had been easy enough over the phone, easy when it wasn’t for the public and wasn’t about it be judged, and screenshotted, and gifed, and tweeted, and retweeted, and written about, and played on TV and, and——

But Harry’s standing there and only two seconds have passed, though it feels like two years, and Louis still can’t hear anything because Harry and his dumb smile and sweaty hair are clouding his senses and his own words from earlier, _“It’d be weird if we didn’t”_ are spinning in his stomach and they suddenly seem a lot easier said than done because Louis isn’t naive and he knows what this hug will do to _some_ of the fans, but they aren’t in a room with _some_ of the fans, they’re in a real life arena filled with thousands of people and it’s hard to shake five years of being told that your love could destroy everything you and your best friends have worked for.

Even as all this slams him in the chest, he realizes his arms are rising of their own accord and probably only another half a second has past, but he sees the ripple of apprehension that shoots through Harry’s eyes, a silent, screaming question that only Louis knows how to read. And in that instant Louis chooses to be brave.

His hands give a little flick and it’s like they’re shaking off five years of _“mind your wrists!”_ and Harry is literally barreling into him.

The noise of the arena floods back to him, except it’s not…it’s not cheering and for the tiniest fraction of a beat Louis is afraid they’re being booed, but…but, no. 

It’s a roar. It’s a fucking roar.

And so he grips on tight and hopes he doesn’t float away because he swears to God thatin that moment, he really and truly could.

But he won’t. He can’t. Not with his anchor wrapped around him.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! Comments are always welcome and leave kudos if you enjoyed :) Visit me over at louisandthealien.tumblr.com


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